Dilyn

Well, I was really happy with my new build that I just got done with:
Specs in the My System tab over...
<---There

And I am quite proud of myself...

I wanted to OC my GPU and my CPU. Didn't wanna mess with the RAM only because I've read that OCing that doesn't really yield much performance gain.

I had my friend help me along the way. He reviews computer parts for a living, builds computers, OCs all sorts of stuff. I totally trust him with computers, 'cus he's got hardware that hasn't even been released to the PUBLIC yet.

Anyways...

I got EVGA Precision for my GPU (made by EVGA, so it has to be a perfect fit, right?!). I got it to go from:
600/1500/900
With 60% fan
With temps of 45C

To
700/1780/960
With 100% fan
With temps of 65C

No artifacts in ATI Tool, completely stable. Highest temp was 75C in Furmark's stability stress test.

I haven't been able to run an actual benchmark, just because PCMark Vantage and 3DMark 06 won't work?! PCMark doesn't display the results at the end (just says view online, and it shows NOTHING) and 3DMark won't give me a result 'cus the CPU test doesn't work.

But, I went from 150-250 FPS in Assassin's Creed to 300-400 FPS in Assassin's Creed.
It's awesome

Gonna buy a Thermalright Trad2 VGA cooler with two 92mm fans to cool it down, get my better OC. I had it had something like
700/1800/980
With 100% fan
No artifacts in ATI Tool, but in Furmark's stability stress test, I got temps going over 85C, and I don't really think that that's safe ;)

NOTE
My friend (mentioned earlier) recommends the Trad2 because he thinks that it's the best 9 series cooler out there... He loves it.


I then moved on to my CPU. It took about 5 minutes to get it from 2.66 to 3.2. Although, my friend DID do the dirty work of researching for me
My multi was set to 9.5 and I just set the FSB to 337, and if you do the math (9.5*337) you'll get a little over 3200. So that's 3.2Ghz. Which is pretty safe, considering that it can be clocked to 3.6 and STILL be safe (although with an increase in voltage).
I got temps of:
47C idle
55C 100% load
And I was quite impressed by this. Didn't think that my Freezer 7 Pro (Arctic Cooling) would do that well in cooling my CPU. Might have something to do with the thermal paste that I used though


What do you guys think? Think that I can go any higher without having to worry about overheating?

Warfare

I have a few questions for you...

How did your FPS get boosted 150+ with that small overclock

What powersupply do you have?

Dilyn

I have NO idea how I got that much of a boost. Luck? Mad skillz? :)
I PEAKED at a 150 gain. It wasn't straight 150 gain the whole time though. Just during the less intensive parts. I got around a 50-75 gain during the more graphical parts.

My power supply is a Corsair TX750W.

Warfare

Nice overclock, Did you stress test your CPU? I dont think I caught that in your original post.

I recommend to run ORTHOS for however long you keep your computer on for. My computer is never really on for more than 12 hours so I tested that for 12 hours. I guess you get it.

I also got my CPU to 3.2 with stock cooler, hoping to get a new cooler soon.


PS
How do you like Win7??

Dilyn

I stress tested with Orthos. Originally tried some other program (forget what it's called... Only heard praise for it though. Nothing bad) but it didn't work for me. So I just downloaded Orthos and ran it for a bit. Passed 9 tests on both cores, stressed at 100% load. Peaked at 55C with my aftermarket cooler. It's a Freezer 7 Pro by Arctic Cooling. I really suggest getting it. It's kept my CPU nice and chilly, even at high loads for hours on end (I do lots of gaming). Kind of tough to install at first, but that's because this is only the second cooler I've ever installed for a CPU. I blame my novice-ness. Also, some thermal paste is always good :)

I really like W7. It's a definite improvement over Vista. Only complaint I've got is that it has seriously effed up my computer (I think). I've had to reinstall the OS (forgot to make a system restore point, apparently it doesn't do that automatically unless you tell it to, like Vista did). And now I just can't boot into any OS. ANY OS. But I don't blame 7 for that.

I definitely recommend it. But not as the main OS of your computer. I recommend Linux for that :)

Warfare

Yea I was always interested in Lunix but I'm not a coder. I recently got into trouble shooting for hardware and some software(Mostly games)

But I'll stop clogging your thread with random conversation. Best of luck with your setup!

Dilyn

No that's completely OK ;)

Thanks for the good wishes. Recently read your thread btw. Very nice. Good luck with yours. Hopefully you can get a good aftermarket cooler on there.

AbnormalCreatio

might want to ditch those 512mb sticks and get 2 more 1gb sticks so you are running dual channel

Dilyn

Ya I will be doing some upgrades to this thing...

Gonna buy a couple more gigs of RAM, a VGA cooler with two 92mm fans, and then I'll be happier :)

AbnormalCreatio

very nice. you should see a nice performance boost once you hit dual channel :)